Some of the researchers are inclined to believe that the Earth could have formed from giant balls of warm mud and not rocky asteroids.

The study’s author Brian Travis from the Planetary science Institute in Arizona argues that the concentration of cosmic ice, dust and circular particles turned into balls of mud. The ice that was melting by the decay of radioactive atoms in the dust and the gas, turned them into the mud. Over time, these balls can harden, turning into objects such as a planet.

“The results of the study showed that many of the first asteroids that were sources of water and organic material to Earth-like planets in the beginning of its existence could be like giant balls of dirt, not solid rock,” reported Brian Travis.